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Shorts Blowpipe
The Shorts Blowpipe was a British MCLOS (manual command line of sight) guided portable SAM launcher. History Blowpipe was developed by Short Brothers PLC (now part of Thales Air Defence) in response to a Ministry of Defence requirement issued in 1966, with the system entering service in 1975. The project was troubled by delays and technical problems, with a report to Parliament in 1976 stating that one in ten of the Blackburn-manufactured fuzes were defective, and later that year it was discovered that RAF units were so loath to expend Blowpipes in training due to costs that most gunners had only conducted two live launches in the previous year. As late as 1979 less than half the units supposed to be issued Blowpipe had actually received it. An IFF system was added to Blowpipe in 1979, and a gunner's thermal night sight first issued in 1980. Blowpipe was used by both sides in the 1982 Falklands War, to little effect: in spite of some 95 launches by the British alone, only two kills have ever been confirmed by the system, one British Harrier and one Argentine helicopter. Royal Marine Brigadier Julian Thompson likened using Blowpipe to "trying to shoot pheasants with a drainpipe." Blowpipe's poor performance soon led to development of a replacement, the SACLOS-guided Shorts Javelin, which replaced Blowpipe in British service in 1985. Production of Blowpipe missiles continued for export customers until 1993. Blowpipes were later issued to the Mujaheddin in Afghanistan, with similarly little effect: they were quickly cast aside when the United States started supplying the much more effective FIM-92 Stinger. Antique Blowpipes were pulled out of storage by the Canadian Navy during the 1991 Gulf War, though 9 out of the 27 test-firings resulted in misfires, and they were used to some effect in the 1995 Cenepa War, where Ecuadorian forces used them against Peruvian helicopters. Design Details Blowpipe uses the MCLOS operating principle, in which the operator must directly steer the missile to the target. The system used wireless radio command guidance to communicate with its missile in flight, with a small thumbstick used to steer the weapon. If the missile lost contact with the launcher, it would automatically self-destruct. This allowed an engagement to be manually aborted by switching off the control unit. Oddly the system actually starts out in a somewhat more effective SACLOS (semi active command line of sight) mode, with the system automatically tracking a beacon on the missile's tail and steering it into line with the sight, but this "autogathering" phase only lasts 2-3 seconds before control of the missile is handed off to the gunner. From this point, the gunner must manually track the missile and target while steering the missile. While this in theory gave Blowpipe an advantage over contemporary tail-chasing IR-guided missiles in that Blowpipe could engage an approaching aircraft and could not be distracted by flares, MCLOS without TV guidance was known to be tricky even with ATGMs and proved harder still with a SAM. In addition, the system could potentially be rendered useless by radio jamming. The system's control unit was a large, blocky component which slid onto the missile container from the rear and locked into place at the back of the wider section. A clip-on thermal sight was later issued to allow the system to be used at night. Ammunition Blowpipe's missile was odd in that it did not use retractable fins like most weapons of this type: instead, the front set of steering fins were at full-length and permanently attached to the missile's body, while the missile's fuselage was pushed down through the rear set of stabilizing fins and into the narrower rear tube section. During firing, the fuselage slid out through the rear fin assembly before it hit a stop at the base, whereupon heat from the launch motor would activate a heat-sensitive glue and fix the tailfins in place. The missile is a soft-launch type with a small launch motor and a more powerful sustainer motor which ignites once the missile has travelled a safe distance, accelerating it to Mach 1.5 before burning out. Four flares with sequential igniters are mounted in the missile's tail to assist in visual tracking. Missiles were supplied in a high-impact plastic case with shoulder straps allowing it to be worn as a backpack. This case was nicknamed the "wine bottle" due to the conical "neck" between the two tube sections. Variants Blowpipe MANPADS variant. Could use an impact or proximity fuze, and either a HE fragmentation or HE-DP warhead with a hollow charge element. Shorts-Northrop Blowpipe Semi-active laser homing variant offered as a competitor to the FIM-92 Stinger in US missile trials. Not adopted or produced in quantity, and the Shorts-Northrop partnership dissolved soon afterwards. Javelin While a distinct system, the Shorts Javelin was a direct development from Blowpipe. It was overall similar but used IR SACLOS for full-course guidance rather than only during the autogathering phase. SLAM "Submarine Launched Airflight Missile." 1972 Royal Navy concept of a cluster of six Blowpipe launchers that could be mounted in a retractable mast on a submarine's sail and remotely controlled, with the idea being that the mast could be raised above the surface and fired with the submarine still submerged. Tested on the Amphion-class submarine HMS Aeneas but abandoned, but ended up fitted to three Israeli Gal-class submarines. References Category:MANPADS Category:Missile launchers